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Violence and turmoil continues throughout Mexico. Since drug kingpin, Arturo Beltran, died in December 2009, bloodshed has become more prevalent in the southwest region of Mexico’s capital, Mexico City. Beltran died from a shootout with marines in Cuernavaca, which lead to a splintering of his cartel. Rivals of Beltran are commonly known for hanging mutilated bodies from bridges along Mexico City and Cuernavaca highways.

These conflicts have resulted in over 34,000 lives lost “since Calderon deployed federal forces in 2006 to battle cartels. An extraordinary amount of drug bosses have been captured and/or killed. Once the bosses are killed, splintering of their cartels occurs and the fighting reaches a horrific level. Last month in Tamaulipas and Durango, secret graves were discovered that help hundreds of bodies.

An anti-violence march took place in Mexico city took place Sunday. The march was spread over a four-day trek and was led by Javier Sicilia, a poet whose son had been slain. His son, Juan Francisco Sicilia, was killed in March in Cuernavaca along with six other people. Investigators believe that some of those that were murdered may have had a conflict with the suspects several days before the attack happened, however Sicilia was not involved.
Hundreds of people gathered in Cuernavaca on Thursday and marched the 50 mile route in silence. Estimations of about 100,000 people were in attendance. Sicilia made a speech to the crowd which demanded that Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna resign from his position. Sicilia also made comments against the Mexican Government for “failing to curb Mexico’s relentless drug violence despite the deployment of thousands of soldiers and federal police to cartel strongholds across the country.”

“If we have walked and arrived here in silence it’s because our pain is so great and so profound, and the horror that causes it so immense, that there are no words to describe it,” Sicilia said. “We still believe that it is possible to the country to be reborn and rise from ruin and show the agents of death that the sons and daughters of this country are standing up.”

How far will the violence in Mexico go until serious action is taken to stop it? The Mexican Government is failing to provide safety for its citizens and thousands of people are dying because of these drug wars. Although these marches spread awareness of the violence, more significant action needs to take place for violence to end. The international community must take action to stop the violence.